Historically, catchers that
earn $20 or more in the National League are a rarity. McCann earned $20 in
2009, while Montero and Molina did it in 2011. Never have there been four
catchers that cracked the $20 barrier in the National League...at least not since
I started tracking this.

And it's not even a close
shave where the catchers that earn $20 or earn $20 on the nose. Posey and
Molina were the sixth and 17th best hitters in the National League.

Unlike in the American
League, it was feast or famine where N.L. catchers were concerned. When you
have two catchers in your 10 best that didn't even make the Majors until late
May/early June, you know there were some failures.

Only Montero breaks even or
comes close. You were either very happy or very upset if you spent an
appreciable amount of money on a catcher (or two) in N.L.-only last year.

How many owners actually do
spend at least $20 on two catchers? I don't have data from lots of leagues in
front of me, but what about in expert formats?

Todd Zola gained some
attention this spring (and by attention I mean attention from nerds like me) by
buying four
catchers in Tout
Wars. You can't do this in standard Rotisserie leagues, but Tout
Wars added something called the swingman: a position where you could
put any hitter or pitcher. Zola's take:

Something else I noticed that while every other
top player was going for a premium, Brian McCann went a bit
undervalued. To see if this was going to be a trend, my next turn, I put Buster Posey out to bid and
sure enough, he also went a few bucks under what I expected. At that point, I
made the conscious decision to take advantage of this and nab two catchers I
happen to like if they came in under price, Miguel Montero and Wilson Ramos. I would put them up
for bid if necessary, as I expected that at some point, the catcher prices
would rise. Sure enough, I got both of them a few bucks below what I would have
paid.

In addition to Montero and
Ramos, Zola walked out of the room with Hundley and Ruiz. By my reckoning, he
took a loss.

While Zola was aggressive
behind the dish, he "only" spent $50 on his four catchers. He didn't
walk away with McCann and Posey at a combined $40 - or 15% of his budget.

I'm with Todd in theory. Go
where the value takes you, even if it means spending a lot of money on your
catchers. I don't like sticking a catcher in a utility slot in a
"standard" Rotisserie league. but in the past I haven't shied away
from spending big
money on catchers if that's where the value is.

The results here don't
necessarily support or contradict the idea that you should spend big money on
catchers. I like the distribution of value in the American League better. With
so many catchers earning in double-digits, you were going to get value back. In
the N.L., this proposition was less clear. It's great that Posey earned $31 and
Molina earned $27. But the wider distribution of values gives me pause about
making a big investment. Posey's the superstar, but he's going to get paid like
one in 2013...and he's going to get taken way too early in draft formats.
Molina is the guy I'd probably target if I wanted to spend. His profile is
lower than Posey's, he's younger than Ruiz, and he probably won't go for quite
as much money while providing fairly sneaky $20 value in deep formats.